Location, location, location – the wrong places for housing?

The Government shake-up of planning would lead to houses being built in all the wrong places by dramatically changing how many houses particular areas are required to take, countryside campaigners in the West Midlands have warned.

This could lead to huge increases in house building in rural areas and on the Green Belt. There would be little protection for local nature areas, as the definition of the so-called ‘grey’ belt does not include them.

Housing requirements would more than double in many rural areas, allowing developers to cherry-pick sites in the countryside. Instead of starting from an up-to-date calculation of the need for new homes in that area, the new proposals would be based solely on the existing stock of housing.

In more expensive areas an ‘affordability’ add-on would ramp up housebuilding even more, sometimes doubling the housing requirement.

Instead of building houses where they are desperately needed, and increasing delivery on existing housing sites, this would allow speculative development in expensive rural areas to increase.

Ironically, Birmingham, which had claimed it could not meet its housing need under the old system, might now be deemed to have excess capacity.

Peter King of West Midlands CPRE said: “We are very concerned that we are going to see many more poorly located developments without adequate services, generating more traffic on our roads, undermining climate change goals and destroying the countryside.”

“We have little confidence in the protection afforded to our Green Belt, as the concept of Grey Belt appears to allow huge leeway for developers to build on sites which most people would consider important to protect.”

The consultation on the proposed changes to the NPPF runs until 24th September. A separate consultation on the Birmingham Plan closed on 27 August.

Annual Housing Numbers by Local Authority

This table shows the difference in annual housing numbers for each local authority in the West Midlands under the new system. It also shows the percentage change.

It then shows the amount which is added on for ‘affordability’ and the percentage of the new total that would represent. It includes composite figures for specific areas such as the Black Country and an overall figure for the West Midlands.

Note 1: The Green Belt authorities are local authorities with Green Belt. It does not imply all those houses would be built on the Green Belt.

Note 2: Our calculation is slightly lower than the Government’s published table in the current consultation. The final column shows the figures they have published.